Travelling to Cairns

We took three days to travel from Ipswich to Cairns. The old Suburu was packed to the rafters, with some of Lisa's stuff. We had already shipped five boxes up to her so Scott could fit into her old room.

We called into Sandra's at Armstrong Beach and had a rest. It was a bit of a journey up with intervals to call into McDonalds and Travel Rest stops to send urgent email to folks. Michelle spent most the time on the phone organising and checking organisation.

Paul had to have a new GPS and so Sue, he took two photographs to show you - the straight road north for 200 km at a time between corners and bends.

Second night was at Kerry and Dean's to catch up with everyone and distribute the pressies from the UK.

Arriving in Cairns was a hoot. We arrived about 1.00pm, bought 10 computers, unpacked them all and tested them and repacked them into new packaging for the travel to the straits. We shopped at officeworks for gear and bought cheap suitcases to get the gear up to Horn island. We had boxes everywhere. We stayed in a cabin so we could have enough room to do the sort. Was an interesting stay and we must have been the strangest people in the park - we packed and unpacked different stuff for different reasons at least twice . Then we used Drew's space storage for the remainder that did not get shipped off.

We had no net access in Cairns at the Cabin, in spite of the advertising and Paul was very persuasive in wanting a Mobile Internet account. I did resist for as long as I could. The boys at Future took pity on us and gave us access to their network for the weekend and so we sat on the steps of the Future cairns Computer shop all weekend. Talk about an afterhours service. Thanks boys for setting up all the lappies and the network. They have been working a treat.

We took our 10 boxes to Australian Air Express, who let us be a day late for the cheap price. Then we got the airport and got a cheaper price again. Luck more than mangement, which is good cause the computers cost more than we thought.

Of course, the next day after all the boxes went, the charter team from Horn Island rang us and wanted to give us a smaller plane. Not a nice thought given we had 150 Kg of luggage in 9 boxes and suitcases. So when we got to Horn we had to retreive our luggage and repack it into three piles - one for Darnley, one for Horn and one for Bamaga. Clothes were fun - as was the frozen food organisation. Scott from Cape Air Transport was just agog at the repack on the footpath beside the coke machine. Talk about your life in 9 boxes.

We eventually got the 100 kg in and the plane actually took off. The views were amazing - next blog entry for details.

The adventure begins

Hi everyone

We are off on a new project to support the Backing Indigenous Ability Project in Queensland. We have an official project blogg at biaqueensland.blogspot.com.au which contains stories from participants about the project from their side.

This is our personal blogg to share the adventure of it all. We are pretty excited about being on the road again to the wonderful north, especially after leaving an Ipswich winter. Two weeks of winter was enough.

We had two weeks at home to organise seven workshops, buy computers and get us and the gear to each community. Running a conference for 1500 people was easier.

We also had to write materials and organise a housesitter in that time while also visiting the family.

Thanks Scott for looking after the house.